Re: PNY Quickchip 133 not working on my 486 motherboard

Posted on 2023-06-24, 13:46

by

by Chkcpu

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Troubleshooting a non-boot issue with a specific CPU calls for a check of that CPU in another 486 board first, so you know the CPU is good. If not, it’s time to get a refund. ;) Basically a BIOS update could help. However there are no newer BIOS versions for your PAT48SA than the 1992 BIOS you …

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Re: Graphic card and SDRAM recommendation for MSI MS-5158 motherboard

Posted on 2023-06-24, 09:32

by

by Chkcpu

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Bad news for me as I was conned into buying a motherboard Ms-5158 that never shipped. Trying to get a refund. Bummer, I hope you can get your money back. Starting from scratch with the motherboard, I am eyeing at a TMC TI5VG+ with a VIA MVP3 chipset which seems to offer better features than 430TX. …

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Re: PNY Quickchip 133 not working on my 486 motherboard

Posted on 2023-06-22, 14:48

by

by Chkcpu

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Hi juicylink, Problems with running an Am5x86-133 CPU on these early 1991/1992 486 boards like your PAT48SA is usually due to an incompatible BIOS. Looking at https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/tmc-mycomp-mynix-pat48sa#downloads I see two AMI BIOS versions. The 121291 has 486SX and 486DX support …

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Re: ECS P5VX-BE BIOS update

Posted on 2023-06-21, 19:58

by

by Chkcpu

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Thanks for the P5VX-Be v1.4 BIOS! Curiously, the v1.4 sign-on message shows a 05/07/1997 publication date, while the BIOS-ID has a 03/10/97 compilation date. Normally these dates are the same. ;) The 03/10/97 compilation date makes this v1.4 BIOS a full 5 months older than the 08/11/97 v1.4f BIOS …

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Re: ECS P5VX-BE BIOS update

Posted on 2023-06-20, 14:08

by

by Chkcpu

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Tried your mod bios but still the same error. (screenshot) Onboard Sound is/was disabled. I have no idea, how the BIOS keeps its settings between the updates. But anyway, thx for your help, and thanks alot for the Tyan S1590S Mod BIOS :) My modded P5VX-Be patch J.2 BIOS is based on the original v1 …

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Re: ECS P5VX-BE BIOS update

Posted on 2023-06-19, 11:42

by

by Chkcpu

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

This NMI error has me intrigued and I have been looking for a possible solution. As you get this error message with the 1.5 BIOS and not with 1.4, I checked for any differences between these BIOS versions. One thing I noticed is that the 1.5 BIOS has an “Onboard Audio Chip” option in the BIOS Setup …

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Re: Graphic card and SDRAM recommendation for MSI MS-5158 motherboard

Posted on 2023-06-15, 17:52

by

by Chkcpu

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Hi Vendest, This MS-5158 is indeed a great ATX socket 7 board for a retro build. :) However, the 1997/1998 BIOS on this board has several limitations, but I can help you with that. Looking at https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/msi-ms-5158-tx5#downloads I see a long list of BIOS versions. The AMI …

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Re: ECS P5VX-BE BIOS update

Posted on 2023-06-13, 12:54

by

by Chkcpu

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Hi Demolition-Man, This BIOS Version 1.5 (11/04/1998) you are using now is a service BIOS from ECS for the P5VX-Be PCB rev 2.0 and 3.0 boards and I have reports that it works well on these board revisions. But it is unknown if it works on the PCB rev 1.0 board as well. What is your board revision? …

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Re: FIC PA-2005 New Build - Help/Questions

Posted on 2023-06-07, 12:03

by

by Chkcpu

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Hi Skorbin, Okay, you found the new location of the patched PA-2005 BIOS! 😀 Yes, due to the move of my website to a new domain, I had to change the links to all the BIOS files as well. Because the old direct link doesn't work anymore, I've update this link in my earlier reply as well. Cheers, Jan

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Re: Obtaining CHS values from a PATA disk

Posted on 2023-06-05, 11:59

by

by Chkcpu

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Hello serialShinobi, My favorite tool for checking CHS values and BIOS translation for IDE drives on Socket 3/5/7 systems is the WD Table Check utility from Western digital. This tool displays CHS and other IDE drive information from the drive itself and from the BIOS, including the Fixed Disk …

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Re: Help identifying P55C Socket 7 board not in Retro Web database

Posted on 2023-06-04, 09:00

by

by Chkcpu

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Great ! Did not even think of looking in the Evergreen utils for an update. Hi Horun, Yes, that Evergreen Spectra Utilities CD v4.0 is a real treasure trove of early socket 7 BIOS upgrades! It was great that 2 years ago user RichardG867 was able to decode this CD-ROM and made these about 3600 …

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Re: Help identifying P55C Socket 7 board not in Retro Web database

Posted on 2023-06-03, 11:45

by

by Chkcpu

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Thanks @Horun! After more digging I discovered this is the Epox EP-P54C-IP board and have submitted the info to TheRetroWeb. I'm going to try to dump the flash and flash something newer, as it's having a hard time detecting any drives I throw at it. You're right about the BCC stickers, it's from …

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Re: A7N8X Deluxe Rev. 2.0 BIOS (Possibly)

Posted on 2023-06-02, 18:05

by

by Chkcpu

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Hi Tecchie, Although I’m more into analyzing and patching Award v4.5x Socket 3/5/7 BIOSes, I will give this “modern” Award v6.00 BIOS a go. ;) The BIOS file you attached is indeed an Asus A7N8X Deluxe PCB revision 2.0 BIOS and appears to be an adapted version 1008 by somebody with the nickname …

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Re: ide cf adapter udma 66/100 compatibility flop

Posted on 2023-06-01, 19:26

by

by Chkcpu

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Luckily most Award BIOSes from 03/1999 or later have a fix for this UDMA bug so you may need a BIOS update for your board. It's a Lucky Star 5I-TX2A, and the the bios is already the latest one (O2-006 from 06/11/1998) as seen on The Retro Web :( To prevent cluttering this thread about CF adapter …

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Re: ide cf adapter udma 66/100 compatibility flop

Posted on 2023-05-29, 12:20

by

by Chkcpu

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Would be impressive considering TX only supports DMA Mode 3 :) Didn't know :) I've jumped over socket 7 back in the day, going from 486 into P2, missed lots of fine details... @rasz_pl, actually the i430TX chipset supports maximum UDMA 2 mode. But you are correct, this BIOS shows the maximum …

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Re: Old SY-6ab+ Motherboard not recognizing HDD

Posted on 2023-05-25, 11:31

by

by Chkcpu

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Great, thanks for reporting back! Cheers, Jan

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Re: Old SY-6ab+ Motherboard not recognizing HDD

Posted on 2023-05-24, 19:34

by

by Chkcpu

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Thanks for the BIOS dump. Checking this SY-6BA+.BIN file shows a valid Ver. 2CA2 BIOS with BIOS-ID: 04/07/1999-i440BX-ITE867-2A69KS2IC-00 This BIOS clearly has the 32GB HDD limit bug, so that’s why both your 80GB and 123GB drives didn’t work! Note that this BIOS is for a Soyo SY-6BA+ board, while …

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Re: Help: updating the BIOS in a 486 PC class machine: Soyo SY-4SAW

Posted on 2023-05-23, 17:23

by

by Chkcpu

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Hi Muon, Just peel the Award sticker from the BIOS chip to check the markings. That should tell you if it is a flash chip that can be programmed in the board. Award flash utility v8.xx is way too new! You need v7.xx for socket 7 and v5.xx for socket 5 and 486 boards. Yes, you can always use your …

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Re: Old SY-6ab+ Motherboard not recognizing HDD

Posted on 2023-05-23, 13:17

by

by Chkcpu

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Dumping the BIOS from the flashchip can simply be done with a flash tool like Awdflash.exe. If you don’t have the flasher for this board, you can use Awdflash v7.95. You can download Awdflash v7.95 from my website at: http://www.steunebrink.info/AWD795.zip At a clean boot DOS prompt (no EMM386 or …

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Re: 486 check

Posted on 2023-05-22, 18:14

by

by Chkcpu

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Hi Kouwes, Okay, the Intel DX4-100 works. From the &EW marking and SK096 number on the CPU, I see that it is a rare DX4 with L1 cache Write-Back support. Great! This explains the floppy drive and soundcard errors because they both use DMA which can create L1 cache coherency problems when the CPU is …

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